Barcelona

Calçots: Not Your Average Onion

As the legend goes, a 19th-century Catalan farmer was out experimenting in his fields when he came up with a new kind of longer, juicier green onion, the calçot. In creating the onion, the farmer produced much more than a new vegetable; he also paved the way for the rise of an idiosyncratic, and distinctly Catalan, cultural event.

Barcelona

El Passadís del Pep: Simple Pleasures

A hidden culinary sanctuary, El Passadís del Pep may be located in one of the most visited quarters of Barcelona, but it’s out of sight of anyone who isn’t looking for it. Once you go down the long corridor that leads to the restaurant, you don’t need to do anything, and that includes choosing what to eat. From the moment you sit down, the “house” offers you your first bottle of cava, and the celebration of food and life begins. There is no menu and there are no “daily specials,” just whatever Joan Manubens and his team decide to cook that day. The restaurant, whose name means “Pep’s Corridor,” specializes in cocina de mercado, or market cuisine, prepared in a simple, traditional Mediterranean style. As if in a ballet, the show begins when the waiters start to dance around you and the food arrives at the table in a continuous flow of abundance: Iberian cured ham, anchovies, typical Catalan bread rubbed with tomato; sautéed baby squid with rice and garlic; choice shellfish such as cañaíllas (a kind of sea snail) prepared in such a delicate way that all the natural flavor is retained; velvet crabs or spider crabs cooked without any ingredient that could detract from their natural essence.

Barcelona

Catalonia's Magic Mushroom Season

Mushroom hunting has an irresistible, magical pull. Composer John Cage, an avid mushroom collector, found them an integral part of his creative process, once writing: “Much can be learned about music by devoting oneself to the mushroom.” Every fall, thousands of Catalans likewise find themselves under the mushroom’s spell, following the elusive fungus’s silent melody into the woods, a rustic wicker basket in one hand and – more and more these days – a GPS-enabled smartphone in the other.